Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of article aggregating technologies, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for counting and aggregating a pre-determined number of articles.
Related Art
In the existing industry, a counting and aggregating apparatus for articles is generally a mechanical counting machine or a photoelectric counting machine. The former uses a turn plate with a fixed number of recesses, where each recess can just contain a piece of article, and by using methods such as rotating, shaking, and strickling, the turn plate carries out a number of articles that just fully fill the recesses, which are then released for packaging. The method is simple and cheap, but has low productivity. This method may also cause an error because occasionally the articles may not fully fill the recesses, and may damage the articles when extra articles are scraped away.
The photoelectric counting machine uses a multi-channel vibrating platform to convey articles forward. Meanwhile, by means of multi-level vibration, the distance between articles is gradually enlarged, and finally, the articles are arranged into multiple single files in which consecutive articles are spaced apart at certain distance, so that the articles reach the end of the vibrating plate and drop in a free falling manner through the channel to which the articles belong. During the dropping, the articles trigger a photoelectric sensor to perform counting, and then the articles are collected in a storage device. The lower side of the photoelectric sensor of each channel is equipped with an automatic gate, which is closed when the target number is reached, so as to distinguish each batch of articles. However, because a multi-channel counting machine needs to divide articles into multiple channels and space out the articles in the conveying process, so that the photoelectric sensor can be effectively triggered, and the conveying mechanism of the articles becomes very bulky, which is inconvenient for arrangement in a production environment. In addition, because the photoelectric sensor needs to be close to an article channel to function, the photoelectric sensor is easily contaminated by dust brought by the articles, thereby causing counting error.
Chinese patent application No. “201210509818.7” discloses a dispensing method and apparatus for articles. The dispensing method includes: first, dispensing an article batch of a number close to a target number, then using a secondary material feeding mechanism dispensing additional articles to the batch one by one until the target number is reached. To achieve dispensing the target number of articles, when articles of a number close to the target number is dispensed, the conveying device must be stopped, and then articles are fed by using the secondary material feeding mechanism. The secondary material feeding mechanism feeds articles one by one, which has low working efficiency. In order to improve the efficiency of dispensing additional articles, extra secondary material feeding mechanism needs to be added, or the number of articles in the first dispensed batch needs to be controlled more accurately, so as to reduce the required number of additional articles. Consequently, the required precision of mechanical control of such a device is very high and the manufacturing cost is increased.
Therefore, for the problem existing in the prior art, it is particularly important to provide a technology of a method and apparatus for counting and aggregating a pre-determined number of articles, which has high aggregating efficiency and low costs.